Milo Yiannopoulos Provokes Protests

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Milo Yiannopoulos, a senior editor at Breitbart News, was the center of protests at Berkeley University in California. The 32 year-old was scheduled to speak at the campus, until protests erupted preventing him from speaking for his own safety. Protests became so violent that there was a total of $100,00 in damages accumulated around campus.

What was meant to be a peaceful protest, turned brutal when 150 masked agitators destroyed windows to the student union and threw fireworks at police. According to UC Berkeley spokesman, Dan Mogulof, these agitators were identified as members of an anarchist group known as the ’Black Bloc.’ It’s been reported that at least six people were injured during the protests.

Students attending U.C Berkeley made their opinions heard about the alt-right, conservative, gay, Catholic/Jewish, Republican Trump supporter, to whom he refers to as “daddy.”

Yiannopoulos is a self described “free speech fundamentalist,” who is a journalist at Breitbart News; an online newspaper ran by President Trumps adviser, Steve Bannon. After the protests, Trump tweeted, questioning if U.C Berkeley University should receive federal funds if the college “does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view.” Many violent protesters, however, were not associated with the university.

Trump and Yiannopolus both have been criticized for their use of Twitter. Last July Yiannopoulos was permanently banned from the website after targeting actress Leslie Jones. Twitter issued a statement saying that he was “inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others.”

It’s not the only activity he has engaged in that is leaving people with questions. Last year he opened up a scholarship exclusively to white men. The Privilege Grant, as it is called, awards the amount of $2,500. Yiannopulos has also been critised for his position on LGBTQ rights, even though he identifies himself as being gay. In one of his works which is titled “I’m So Bored of Being Gay” he expresses his claims that he chose to be gay.

Many of his stances and comments about women and equality have also caused an uproar. Before being banned from Twitter he tweeted “Equality matters. But since no one cares about reducing the number of male suicides, how do we get those female numbers up?”

For many of these reasons, students at U.C Berkeley University were appalled to hear that he would be speaking at their college for his “Dangerous Faggot” bus tour. During his tour, he hopes to visit traditionally left-leaning colleges to talk about opening up hate speech, as a form of free speech. Last month during an interview with CNN Yiannopoulos said,

“I am speaking on college campuses because education…is really what matters. It’s crucible where these bad ideas are formed. Bad ideas like progressive social justice, feminists, Black Lives Matter… that I think is so cancerous and toxic to free expression.”

This wasn’t the first instance of outcry on college campus as a result of his speeches. Just last month Yiannopoulos was forced to cancel an appearance at UCLA.